Exploring Literary Techniques One

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Exploring Literary Techniques One

• ?2003 alan greenwood
• Do not copy this presentation without the express
  permission of AWG ENTERPRISES.

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Lets look at several techniques used by authors
in literature

• The following presentation is designed to clarify
  study of mood and voice in literature. It also
  touches on theme.

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Authors techniques in literature

• Take notes and perform the included exercises for
  the best results.

Charles Dickens
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Learn to recognize

• Appreciation of literature by readers includes
  recognizing the various methods used by writers
  to control prose and poetry through mood and
  voice.

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Mood in literature

• Mood is the dominant emotional attitude in a
  literary work or in part of a work, for example,
  regret, hopefulness, bitterness, happiness, etc.

Whats so funny?
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Mood?

• What MOOD do you think Poe represented in CASK OF
  AMONTILLADO?
• 1. Cheerful
• 2. Macabre
• 3. Humorous
• 4. Playful
• 5. Revengeful, bitter
• (pick the two which fit and discuss)

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Mood?

• What MOOD do you think Poe represented in CASK OF
  AMONTILLADO?
• 1. Cheerful
• 2. Macabre
• 3. Humorous
• 4. Playful
• 5. Revengeful, bitter
• (pick the two which fit and discuss)

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MOOD

• MOOD is often used interchangeably with TONE,
  although some try to define MOOD as the authors
  attitude toward the subject or theme.
• Author Subject or
  Theme
• ex (revenge)
• We will discuss THEME further in a moment.

attitude
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THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

• What do you think the writer Poes attitude is to
  revenge? The speakers? Whats the difference
  between the writer and speaker in a work?

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Poes choice of words to suggest mood

• Ex in Cask Poe uses dark, morbid diction choices
  to set a macabre, scary mood in the story. (lets
  look)
• It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme
  madness of the carnival season, that I
  encountered my friend. He accosted meThe man
  wore motley. He had on a a tight fitting
  party-striped dress.

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And tone as

• TONE the authors attitude toward her readers.
• (brusque, insinuating, teasing, hateful,
  condescending, informing)
• Author
• Readers

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TONE

• is similar to tone of voice in speech.

In THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, O. Henry uses a
sympathetic tone toward a poor, young couple. In
MEMORY, by Margaret Walker ,Walker uses a
grieving tone.
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Tone in the poem Memory What words reflect
grieving?

• I can remember wind-swept streets of cities
• on cold and blustery nights, on rainy days
• heads under shabby felts and parasols
• and shoulders hunched against a sharp concern
• seeing hurt bewilderment on poor faces

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Tone in Memory what words reflect grieving?

• I can remember wind-swept streets of cities
• on cold and blustery nights, on rainy days
• heads under shabby felts and parasols
• and shoulders hunched against a sharp concern
• seeing hurt bewilderment on poor faces

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Change the tone in Memory insert words to
change to a happy tone.

• I can remember ___________streets of cities
• on ____ and _______________, on _____ days
• heads under __________ felts and parasols
• and shoulders ______ against a _____ concern
• seeing ___________ on ________ faces

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Tone

• Is tone represented by diction (author word
  choice)?
• (certainly)

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Theme

• Theme the message implied in the work. Theme is
  rarely plainly stated by the author but can be
  stated in one sentence by the reader.
• In THE BIRDS, all the birds in the world turn
  against people attacking and killing them.
• See if you can state Daphne du Mauriers Theme
  in one sentence.

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Review

• Mood the authors attitude toward the subject or
  theme.
• Tone the authors attitude toward her readers
• (If thats confusing, remember some combine MOOD
  TONE. Both can be found through diction and
  syntax.
• Theme the message implied in the work

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The voice of a writer.

• The authors voice is what attracts readers to
  his/her work.
• People read Stephen King, Mark Twain, Poe,
  Steinbeck, etc. because they love that writers
  voice.

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Voice

• Lets imagine a classroom full of children. A
  herd of cows runs down the hallway during class.
  Now, imagine the teacher wasnt there, and she
  picks out several of these students to describe
  the incident to her. Will they all describe it
  the same way? Of course, not. They will all
  describe it in their own voice.

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Different voices

• One little girl, deathly afraid of animals, will
  describe it with adjectives of fear.
• A well-seasoned farm boy may think its funny and
  tell it in a humorous way.
• A naïve city girl may add the mystery of
  unknown animals.
• The class liar may say he tried to catch them.

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Different voices

• In the same way, authors relate stories in
  different voices.
• Yet.

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Different voices

• Even though authors have different voices, they
  can still tell stories with different MOODS.
• Stephen King can weave words to create a
  cheerful, sad, scary or humorous MOOD. And they
  are all in Stephen Kings voice.

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The characters voice

• Lets take it one more step.
• Stay with usthis isnt as complicated if you go
  slowly
• Stephen King (inside the story) will speak in
  the voice of the view-point charactersuch as the
  jailer in THE GREEN MILE.

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Voice of character

• King must put words in the characters mouth that
  he would truly say. Therefore, word choice and
  syntax must be those of a white male, a certain
  age, education level, etc.
• At the same time, all the characters and story
  are still presented in the way Stephen King
  writes. They will be totally different than if
  Ernest Hemmingway would write them.

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Therefore

• the voice of the writerand withinthe voice the
  writer creates for the character within the story.

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Voice

• Voice is complicated. Voice is everything that
  makes a writer who he is and how he writes. And
  it includes the two subsections we just
  discussed
• Voice of the writer himself that comes through
  in his/her work.
• Voice of the particular character that the
  writer is inhabiting.

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Voice

• Voice includes diction (word choice), syntax
  (sentence structure), tone, imagery, rhythm and
  the other more subtle qualities that make each
  writer who they are.
• Lets look at some examples of voice

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Voice

• Durn that road. And it fixing to rain, too. I can
  stand here and same as see it with a
  second-sight, a-shutting down behind them like a
  wall, shutting down betwixt them and my given
  promise. I do the best I can, much as I can get
  my mind on anything, but durn them boys.
• (Discuss what you think about the voice of this
  author.) What is the speaker like?

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Voice

• Durn that road. And it fixing to rain, too. I can
  stand here and same as see it with a
  second-sight, a-shutting down behind them like a
  wall, shutting down betwixt them and my given
  promise. I do the best I can, much as I can get
  my mind on anything, but durn them boys.
• This is William Faulkner taken from AS I LAY
  DYING. Faulkner was a Southern writer who was
  successful in writing in dialect. The speaker
  here is Anse, a character from the story. What do
  you think Anse is like? Education? Place of birth?

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Voice

• As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French
  colors from his peak and by the eddying cloud of
  vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and
  swooped around him , it was plain that the whale
  alongside must be what the fishermen called a
  blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died
  unmolested on the sea, and so floated an
  unappropriated corpse.
• What is the diction and syntax here like?

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Voice

• As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French
  colors from his peak and by the eddying cloud of
  vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and
  swooped around him , it was plain that the whale
  alongside must be what the fishermen called a
  blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died
  unmolested on the sea, and so floated an
  unappropriated corpse.
• This is Herman Melville from the classic novel
  Moby Dick. Its all one sentence and the diction
  is very high-brow.

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Lets look at a contemporary writer who
considers Faulkner and Melville his influences.

• Id not go behind scripture but it may be that
  there has been sinners so notorious evil that the
  fires coughed em up again and I could well see in
  the long ago how it was little devils with their
  pitchforks had traversed that fiery vomit for to
  salvage back those souls that had by misadventure
  been spewed up from their damnation on the outer
  shelves of the world.

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This is Cormack McCarthy from Blood Meridian,
which the respected critic Harold Bloom calls a
Modern Classic.

• Id not go behind scripture but it may be that
  there has been sinners so notorious evil that the
  fires coughed em up again and I could well see in
  the long ago how it was little devils with their
  pitchforks had traversed that fiery vomit for to
  salvage back those souls that had by misadventure
  been spewed up from their damnation on the outer
  shelves of the world.

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What is the diction and syntax like?

• Id not go behind scripture but it may be that
  there has been sinners so notorious evil that the
  fires coughed em up again and I could well see in
  the long ago how it was little devils with their
  pitchforks had traversed that fiery vomit for to
  salvage back those souls that had by misadventure
  been spewed up from their damnation on the outer
  shelves of the world.

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The Pulitzer Prize winning THE SHIPPING NEWS
Annie Proulx (pronounced Proo)

• Computer screen like boiling milk. The
  harbormaster punched keys, the names of ships
  leaped in royal blue letters, their tonnages,
  ownersbirthdate and social insurance number. The
  harbormaster tapped again and a printer hummed,
  the paper rolled out into a plastic bin. He tore
  off pages, handed them to Quoyle. The shipping
  news.

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Annie Proulxs writing contains many sentence
fragments and run-ons.

• Computer screen like boiling milk. The
  harbormaster punched keys, the names of ships
  leaped in royal blue letters, their tonnages,
  ownersbirthdate and social insurance number. The
  harbormaster tapped again and a printer hummed,
  the paper rolled out into a plastic bin. He tore
  off pages, handed them to Quoyle. The shipping
  news.

How would those flavor the voice of her writing?
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• The city was their stony-hearted mother, and from
  her breast they had drawn a bitter nurture. Born
  to brick and asphalt, to crowded tenements and
  swarming streets, stunned into sleep as children
  beneath the sudden slamming racket of the
  elevated trains, taught to fight , to menace, and
  to struggle in a world of savage violence and
  incessant din, they had had the citys qualities
  stamped into their flesh and movements, distilled
  through all their tissues, etched with the citys
  acid into their tongue and brain and vision.

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Thomas Wolfe

• The city was their stony-hearted mother, and from
  her breast they had drawn a bitter nurture. Born
  to brick and asphalt, to crowded tenements and
  swarming streets, stunned into sleep as children
  beneath the sudden slamming racket of the
  elevated trains, taught to fight , to menace, and
  to struggle in a world of savage violence and
  incessant din, they had had the citys qualities
  stamped into their flesh and movements, distilled
  through all their tissues, etched with the citys
  acid into their tongue and brain and vision.

What do you notice about the voice here?
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Thomas Wolfe

• The city was their stony-hearted mother, and from
  her breast they had drawn a bitter nurture. Born
  to brick and asphalt, to crowded tenements and
  swarming streets, stunned into sleep as children
  beneath the sudden
• Wolfe was heavily edited by his editor. His
  manuscripts became huge books. As you see, his
  prose was long, drawn out and (some might say)
  tedious. He tended many times to tell instead
  of show yet hes one of the greats of the
  earlier 20th Century. He used many adjectives and
  adverbs.Discuss why you think people accepted his
  voice?

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Catherine Ryan Hyde Pay It Forward

• There were four of them at the mouth of the
  alley, backlit by the streetlight, breathing
  clouds of steam into air left cold and clear by
  yesterdays rain. They moved up, the ladys sorry
  boyfriend in front , with his three stooges
  standing just to the rear, smiling in a sickening
  chorus.
• Gotcha now, trash-talking city boy.

What is Hydes voice like?
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Catherine Ryan Hyde Pay It Forward

• There were four of them at the mouth of the
  alley, backlit by the streetlight, breathing
  clouds of steam into air left cold and clear by
  yesterdays rain. They moved up, the ladys sorry
  boyfriend in front , with his three stooges
  standing just to the rear, smiling in a sickening
  chorus.
• Gotcha now, trash-talking city boy.
• One thing this researcher noted is that Hyde uses
  many participial phrases in her writing. And some
  editors frown on them. Why do you think it works
  for her? What are you starting to notice about
  voice?

What is Hydes voice like?
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Voice

• Have you noticed that many writers break rules of
  what we would call proper grammar and
  mechanics
• Ex, run-ons, sentence fragments, loooong
  sentences, comma usage.
• How do these lapses enhance the authors voice?

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Stephen King The Green Mile

• At Johns execution in the electric chair
• The cap hummed. Eight large fingers and two
  large thumbs rose from the ends of the chairs
  broad oak arms and splayed tensely in ten
  different directions, their tips jittering. His
  big knees made caged pistoning motions, but the
  clamps on his ankles held. Overhead, three of the
  hanging lights blew outPow! Pow! Pow!

What diction does KING use for Mood here? How is
KINGS voice different from others youve
discussed?
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Test of Voice

• Now, lets look at another segment from each of
  the authors presented
• Write down these names and match them with the
  upcoming excerpts from them.
• Faulkner, Melville, Cormack McCarthy, Stephen
  King, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Thomas Wolfe, Annie
  Proulx.
• Match them with their work. See how you do. It
  wont be as simple as syntax or subject matter.
  It involves everything that makes an author who
  he or she is.

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First author

• The kitchen seemed to Loyal seemed to be falling
  outward like a perspective painting, showing the
  grain of the ham, the two shades of green of the
  ivy wallpaper, the ears of drying popcorn joined
  together in a twist of wire over the stove, the
  word COMFORT on the oven door, Jewels old purse
  nailed to the wall to hold bills and letters

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2nd author

• He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The
  floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black
  suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies
  leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass
  vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the
  portraits of forebears only dimly known to him
  all framed in glass and dimly lit above the
  narrow wainscoting. He looked down at the
  guttered candlestub.

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3rd author

• Almost an hour and a half later the door creaked
  open, allowing a sliver of light from the
  hallway.
• Daddy? A thin whisper.
• Im awake, honey.
• I kind of knew you would be.
• She came in and sat in the straight-backed chair
  by his bed, and Hayden pulled himself into a
  sitting position, his back against the padded
  headboard, and turned on the bedside lamp.

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4th author

• Isom, in a duck jacket, served them and returned
  to the kitchen.
• She aint coming to supper? Elnora said.
• Nome, Isom said. Setting yonder by the window,
  in the dark. She say she dont want no supper.
• Elnora looked at Saddie. What was they doing
  last time you went to the library?
• Her and Miss Narcissa talking.

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5th author

• Now the innumerable archipelago had been
  threaded, and he stood, firm-planted, upon the
  unknown but waiting continent.
• He learned to read almost at once, printing the
  shapes of words immediately with his strong
  visual memory but it was weeks later before he
  learned to write, or even to copy words. The
  ragged spume and wrack of fantasy

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6th author

• And the knife. He would be carrying a long, sharp
  knifemore of a machete, actually, the sort of
  knife that could strike off a persons head in a
  single sweeping stroke.
• And he would be grinning, showing those filed
  cannibal teeth.

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7th Author

• I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my
  stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me
  that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had
  entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my
  request in the clearest tone I could assume but
  in quite as clear a one came the previous replay,
  I would prefer not to.
• Prefer not to, echoed I, rising in high
  excitement

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First author Annie Proulx from POSTCARDS

• The kitchen seemed to Loyal seemed to be falling
  outward like a perspective painting, showing the
  grain of the ham, the two shades of green of the
  ivy wallpaper, the ears of drying popcorn joined
  together in a twist of wire over the stove, the
  word COMFORT on the oven door, Jewels old purse
  nailed to the wall to hold bills and letters

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2nd author Cormack McCarthy from ALL THE PRETTY
HORSES

• He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The
  floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black
  suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies
  leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass
  vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the
  portraits of forebears only dimly known to him
  all framed in glass and dimly lit above the
  narrow wainscoting. He looked down at the
  guttered candlestub.

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3rd author Catherine Ryan Hyde from Electric God

• Almost an hour and a half later the door creaked
  open, allowing a sliver of light from the
  hallway.
• Daddy? A thin whisper.
• Im awake, honey.
• I kind of knew you would be.
• She came in and sat in the straight-backed chair
  by his bed, and Hayden pulled himself into a
  sitting position, his back against the padded
  headboard, and turned on the bedside lamp.

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4th author William Faulkner from Collected Short
Stories

• Isom, in a duck jacket, served them and returned
  to the kitchen.
• She aint coming to supper? Elnora said.
• Nome, Isom said. Setting yonder by the window,
  in the dark. She say she dont want no supper.
• Elnora looked at Saddie. What was they doing
  last time you went to the library?
• Her and Miss Narcissa talking.

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5th author Thomas Wolfe from Look Homeward Angel

• Now the innumerable archipelago had been
  threaded, and he stood, firm-planted, upon the
  unknown but waiting continent.
• He learned to read almost at once, printing the
  shapes of words immediately with his strong
  visual memory but it was weeks later before he
  learned to write, or even to copy words. The
  ragged spume and wrack of fantasy

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6th author Stephen King from Road Virus Held North

• And the knife. He would be carrying a long, sharp
  knifemore of a machete, actually, the sort of
  knife that could strike off a persons head in a
  single sweeping stroke.
• And he would be grinning, showing those filed
  cannibal teeth.

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7th Author Herman Melville from the classic
Bartleby

• I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my
  stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me
  that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had
  entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my
  request in the clearest tone I could assume but
  in quite as clear a one came the previous replay,
  I would prefer not to.
• Prefer not to, echoed I, rising in high
  excitement

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In Summary

• Mood is the dominant emotional attitude in a
  literary work or in part of a work, for example,
  regret, hopefulness, bitterness, happiness, etc.
• Voice is complicated. Voice is everything that
  makes a writer who he is and how he writes. And
  it includes two subsections
• Voice of the writer himself that comes through
  in his/her work.
• Voice of the particular character that the
  writer is inhabiting.

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THE END

• Exploring Literary Techniques One
• ?2003 alan greenwood
• Do not copy this presentation without the express
  permission of AWG ENTERPRISES.

Voice Mood